Partnership for 21st Century Releases Guiding Principles

Following their framework for developing 21st Century Skills for Students, the Partnership for the 21st Century has released their National Action Agenda Principles to be used by the private, corporate, policy, and education sector to define and advance the 21st century skills and core content areas. According to the 21st Century Partnership, the agenda will equip the next generation withe the opportunities and challenges use these skills.

Although the principles can serve a starting point among the private and sector to begin the process to develop awareness of the need of 21st Century Skills, it fall short in creating a clear picture how schools, policy makers, and the private sector can work together to ensure these essential skills become a standard for teaching and learning.

The principles do bring a promising result. It will allow, those who believe that the common practice of educating our students are outdated, to begin a discussion and begin a collective effort to change the tide of common practice at the classroom, school, district, state, and national level.

Creating this discussion, thus will bring awareness of how our students are falling behind with skills that will allow them to collaborate, communicate, and participate with their global counterparts

21st Century Skils in Global Econonmy with the 7 C's

In his book, The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner makes the argument for the 21st Century Survivial Skills which will prepare our students for the future and as citizens in a global community.

This message resonantes with a video that I have include:

Tony Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap

Just wanted to share a thought provoking book with my readers. As you may have already know from reading my prior archives. I believe our educational system needs to change. We can no longer accept the traditional and outdated method of teaching our students, instead we must create a revolutionalry movement in how we teach and prepare our students for the challenges of the 21st Century.

Tony Wagner's book resonantes that need.

I began to read Mr. Wagner's book and I am impressed with his point of view. He believes our students are being conditioned to memorize facts and instead of developing their skills as critical thinkers or problem solvers.

Despite the best efforts of educators, our nation’s schools are dangerously obsolete. Instead of teaching students to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers. Skills that are needed in today's work force.

Through numerous interviews and observation, Mr. Wagner offers a glimpse of He explains "how every American can work to overhaul our education system," and offers us examples of schools that are teaching students new skills.

However, do not take my word for it, read for it yourself. I included reviews to read at your pleasure:
http://www.shelfari.com/books/1640577/Benjie-Lopez/readersreviews

THE TIME IS NOW!

If you have not yet been convinced of changing our instructional practice to match the needs of our student and its relevance to their lives, let me invite you to another powerful example for the need of change. The purpose of this video is to have you think about our "Changing Times." You should not be surprised how fast technology is changing our world and making it easier for us to participate in global community. Also it is not surprising how these statistics demonstrate first hand how our students are part of the process evolution as active participants. Therefore, consider this a challenge. As educators, we must match our teaching to the technological tool students use in their lives . We must make the shift now.

Changing the Educational Pedadogy of our Students

Check out this video. The video explains why our educational system is outdated. It confirms how our traditional educational system provides our students blueprints of what they should learn. The presenter makes the argument for change. He states our current pedadogical DNA must be reconfigured to break away the past and match the educational needs our students in an era of technology.

THE NEED TO CHANGE!

Our educational practice is outdated. In the turn of the industrial revolution, the "Committee of 10" systematically created the blueprint of our dysfunctional educational system. According to Dennis Littky's book, The Big Picture; Education is Everyone's Business, these members created a doctrine of what will be taught, in what order, and began the concept of tracking students.
They envisioned a mass production of students who learned skills which enabled them to become productive members of our society. They foresaw an educational system which produced educated people like factories. According to Littky, they dictated the "certain amount of information student should learn, and handed teachers the responsibility to teach it." Unfortunately this "one size fits all" education approach continues to permeate our schools and undoubtedly our instructional practice.
This single vision of the educational system for our students in not only outdated, but it also ill-prepares our students for the challenges of tomorrow.
Therefore, the goal of this blog and its entries will be to promote the skills necessary for our students to succeed in the 21st century. The following our the skills that the NCTE and Partnership of The 21st Century Skills have adopted and will serve as the foundation to my work as an educator.

• Creativity and Innovative
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Collaboration
• Digital Literacy
• Flexibility and Adaptability
• Contributing Memember of the Global Community
• Leadership and Responsibility